NASCAR has outlawed tandem drafting on restrictor-plate tracks in 2014 for the Nationwide Series and Camping World Truck Series, which saw some brutal accidents at the end of the races at Daytona and Talladega last year.

The sanctioning body was able to eliminate tandem racing — where one car pushes another car around the track to increase the speed of both cars — in Sprint Cup with engine-cooling rules that make it difficult to orchestrate a tandem draft without overheating the engine.

It will try those engine cooling rules plus smaller spoilers in the Nationwide and truck series this year but also have issued an edict to the drivers in its two top development series not to tandem draft. Drivers can still bump-draft but can’t be bumper-to-bumper pushing beyond a tap.

“We had a few owners who came to us and said, ‘Look, you’ve got to help us. Just tell them they can’t do it and police it and we’ll help you with it,’” NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said in an interview with SN Saturday. “We’ll see how all that works out. It’s a reaction to a lot of things, and part of it you’d have to think that weighs in is the big wrecks.”

At the end of the Nationwide race at Daytona last year, Kyle Larson’s car got airborne and sent pieces of car parts and debris flying into the speedway’s catchfence. The fence buckled at the crossover gate — which can be removed so fans can get to and from the infield — and debris from Larson’s car injured more than 30 fans.

At the end of the truck race at Talladega in October, several drivers were involved in a last-lap accident that destoryed several trucks.

While wrecks often happen no matter the style of racing, tandem drafting includes the danger of a driver’s view being blocked when pushing another car. And any sudden move from the car being pushed often will result in a crash. With limited visibility and less reaction time than normal (as well as often having drivers with less experience), NASCAR opted to ban the practice.

“You still have to rely on a lot of other cars to work with you in the draft, and two cars are still faster than one, but the fact that you don't have to have somebody locked onto your back bumper or your front bumper like the tandem racing, it puts a lot more control in your own hands rather than relying on other guys,” said James Buescher, who won the Nationwide race at Daytona in 2012.

Drivers like having that control.

“It’s tough to comprehend the concept of let me help this guy get to the front, knowing that I might have to finish second to him just so I can finish second because it happens that he's the car out front and I'm the car in back,” said JR Motorsports driver Regan Smith, who was involved in the Larson crash last year.

“I think getting rid of that is going to be good. I'm excited to see the style of race it will be when that's gone, and assuming that that's gone completely this year. Just the rules alone I think are going to be enough to do away with 90 percent of it.”

Pemberton said the ban will be strictly policed. Drivers can be black-flagged for tandem drafting, NASCAR officials said.

“You can pull up and bump a guy and hit him, but you just cannot stay (there), you can’t connect,” Pemberton said. “So far what we’ve seen on the track today has been pretty good. … The drivers like the fact that we’re helping with that. The vast majority don’t want to hook up.”

“We feel like it will be a better race, a better show with more of a conventional old-school style of drafting,” Pemberton said.